Hospitalization. Vorob'ev.

Lesha was examined by doctors in the Pirogov Medical Centre; they confirmed the diagnosis and ordered to find a hospital. It sounded like: "We have run out of quota. Look for somebody who will treat you". What does this quota mean? What kind of quota do we need? But Lesha needs urgent treatment". Later we were told that they had just got rid of a seriously ill patient, with about 97% of blasts (cancer cells) in the bone marrow, with a suspect neuroleukemia. A suspect? It can be seen: his eyes and ears, an obvious affection of the nervous system. No doubt the patient is difficult.

In horror we called everyone we could and found out that we should try to receive a consultation and treatment in the scientific hematological centre of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences: it's the best place. It turned out that the legendary Professor Pushkar' was a friend of the director. Pushkar' rang up and said; "At 8 o'clock go and talk to Andrey Ivanovich. But I can't be responsible for the result. Sometimes he helps, sometimes he doesn't. Convince him that he should help you".

I sit at night, worrying and thinking who Andrey Ivanovich is and how I can persuade him. I study the site of hematological centre Blood.ru: here he is. Academician Vorob'ev.

At the bottom there is a list of articles. "Dying out of the nation on the background of limitless reforms." I'm reading: "I've spoken of the process of dying out, the degradation of our population. But to be more accurate, along with the physical degradation, an ideological degradation also takes place. They impose something pathological by disguising it and calling it art. This is a degradation of our culture".

On ICQ they tell me to quote more of him so that our chances of convincing will increase "I'll speak in a rush, by extracts".

Andrey Ivanovich thinks in a curious and out of the ordinary way. The range of his interests isn't limited only to hematology.

"Did it turn out that Beria played a positive role?" a journalist asks.
Andrey Ivanovich answers: "Beria played an outstanding role in the process of creation of the nuclear weapon. Although, there is no doubt that he was an executioner. People can't be neither absolute hangmen nor absolute angels. Pay attention to the rainbow: there is no black or white."

There is some more material. In the veins of the leading hematologist of the country runs the "blood of October":

"I could understand what Stalin meant since early childhood", Andrey Ivanovich says. "My parents didn't discuss serious problems in my presence but once I asked my father: "Dad, is he a tsar?" perhaps he meant a limitless glorification of the leader. I remember my father stroking my head and answering with special warmth: "You'll understand it later".

Andrey Ivanovich has certain preferences in literature: before going to bed he can read Pushkin or Leo Tolstoy, he is indifferent to Brodsky and Nabokov, he can't imagine the modern literature without Paustovsky, Viktor Nekrasov and Makanin. "And how is it possible to live without the poems and the songs by Galich, Okudzhava, Vysotsky!" "When judging the contemporary situation in Russia he is absolutely categorical: the situation is bad. Billionaires and hundreds of thousands of homeless children!!!" it's difficult not to agree with that.

It is dawn, day has come; I'm sitting at Vorob'ev's consulting room. Andrey Ivanovich is at a conference. There are a lot of people waiting for him, doctors, professors, senior guards. As Andrey Ivanovich appears at the doors, everybody gives him documents, interrupting one another, making noise and pushing each other. The academic, surrounded by the excited crowd, disappears behind the door. I'm sitting and don't dare to move. What should I do? "Who sent you?" asks an attentive woman in glasses, obviously one of the assistants of Andrey Ivanovich. Trembling like a leaf I murmur a cherished word: "Pushkar'" and give her a reference with the diagnosis. Everything begins...